Was listening to the Roy Green show on the weekend. Callers from Canada were pumping his tires and couldn't get enough Trump, "he's a man of his word" they all said. Maybe he needs to be a man of less words and more listening.
There's always a segment of our population that just arbitrarily applies American problems/culture to Canada and then jumps on board with American hysteria/movements. It's so weird.
I always figured on a deeper level it's because human beings long to fit into groups and be part of tribes/teams so they justify themselves into movements that gain huge traction on TV/social media, which by and large are American. They just want to be for things and against things and more importantly part of the groups that represent fighting for and against things.
You realize that also describes Canadians who are freaking out about Trump, right? Canadians who are deeply immersed in American pop and political culture, who get all their current events from Daily Show, Colbert Report, and SNL, and feel the need to take a side in another country's political divide.
I'd like to see these t-shirts made in Canada:
Not My President
Seriously... not my president. We have our own issues to worry about.
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Originally Posted by gargamel
Agreed. Racism and xenophobia were definitively bigger factors than sexism.
It's easy to dismiss fears about globalization as xenophobia and racism. It's also a mistake.
I personally support continued high levels of immigration. I also have liberal (in the traditional sense) attitudes about international trade. That doesn't mean I regard everyone who is worried about the effect of immigration and the outsourcing of industries on their jobs and futures as morally defective pigs who secretly harbours dark motives that they won't come out and admit to.
Look at the UK and Brexit (as big a story globally as Trump's election). The Labour party has torn itself apart over the issue, because the educated urbanite Labour supporters are happy with an open borders policy for workers and business, while the party's traditional core supporters among the working class outside London are against. Branding them all bigots proved to be a singularly ineffective strategy that has wrecked the country's leftist party, maybe for a generation.
People in democracies, left and right, need to stop doubling-down on moralistic, tribal, us vs them hate-mongering. That kind of polarization can wreck a democracy, which is exactly what Putin (and maybe Trump himself) want to see.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
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I've never watched Dragon's Den but based on his one public statement to date, O'Leary seems much less obnoxious than Trump. He didn't call an entire nationality a bunch of rapists or anything! Which, well, I guess you'd expect Canada's Trump to be more restrained and polite.
Anyway, this is the American politics thread, so.
Hayes BrownVerified account
@HayesBrown
"It's okay, the Senate will save the Republic" is a thought I just unironically had so we're probably all doomed tbh
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Also on the Roy Green show this weekend - a 3-part interview with Kevin O'Leary. He was speaking like a true businessman - fire everybody, Trudeau is poison, Notley would have been fired a long time ago, and politics and economy are simple if you look at it from the bottom line terms.
Roy was hanging off his every word, and reminded listeners to "pretend like this isn't a candidate and it's coming from the future PM of Canada" perspective.
Good to know we've got Trump junior waiting in the wings!
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I've never watched Dragon's Den but based on his one public statement to date, O'Leary seems much less obnoxious than Trump. He didn't call an entire nationality a bunch of rapists or anything! Which, well, I guess you'd expect Canada's Trump to be more restrained and polite.
Anyway, this is the American politics thread, so.
Hayes BrownVerified account
@HayesBrown
"It's okay, the Senate will save the Republic" is a thought I just unironically had so we're probably all doomed tbh
Someone in the Canadian politics thread had posted a piece from Brett Wilson on OLeary, very different than the Dickinson one.
KAC's rant when asked about Spicer lying was hilarious. She knows that she can answer any question with a rant about Obama, and their supporters are dumb enough to completely forget about what it was she should be answering. It's like shaking your car keys to get a baby to stop whining.
Here's an interesting documentary by CBC's The Fifth Estate on Trump and his alleged ties to Russia. Pretty frightening stuff when you actually sit back and look at all the shady events and circumstances that led to the current s**t show we're all witnessing.
That was excellent, goes well with the one from 2009.
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So in the end Rubio ####s himself yet again, will vote for Tillerson anyway. I don't think there's much doubt, no one is even close to being a bigger loser out of this entire campaign back into 2015 than Marco Rubio. From GOP's great hope, to it's biggest #####. He should just resign from the senate now, his career in national politics is over.
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"Think I'm gonna be the scapegoat for the whole damn machine? Sheeee......."
So in the end Rubio ####s himself yet again, will vote for Tillerson anyway. I don't think there's much doubt, no one is even close to being a bigger loser out of this entire campaign back into 2015 than Marco Rubio. From GOP's great hope, to it's biggest #####. He should just resign from the senate now, his career in national politics is over.
Only if he wanted to run as a Democrat. Republicans will have no issue with this move.
So in the end Rubio ####s himself yet again, will vote for Tillerson anyway.
One of the weirdest things about the past six months in U.S. politics is the inevitability of each side appropriating and re-purposing the other side's buzzwords. No particular point here, it's just odd.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
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One of the weirdest things about the past six months in U.S. politics is the inevitability of each side appropriating and re-purposing the other side's buzzwords. No particular point here, it's just odd.
I think what's different this time is Trump supporters came up with things like #### and snowflake and triggered...because of course, they were projecting just like their dear leader. Notice they are now cool with Trump stabbing them in the back repeatedly (like a #### is cool with you ####ing his wife), and they piss and moan about every little criticism of Trump (like little triggered snowflakes). So I'm just enjoying putting those words back on them, since they are the best representations of the word, despite their likely intense protests of those terms applying to them.
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"Think I'm gonna be the scapegoat for the whole damn machine? Sheeee......."
I think what's different this time is Trump supporters came up with things like #### and snowflake and triggered...because of course, they were projecting just like their dear leader. Notice they are now cool with Trump stabbing them in the back repeatedly (like a #### is cool with you ####ing his wife), and they piss and moan about every little criticism of Trump (like little triggered snowflakes). So I'm just enjoying putting those words back on them, since they are the best representations of the word, despite their likely intense protests of those terms applying to them.
I mean, they didn't come up with "triggered", obviously. That was them re-purposing a term used mostly by the left on campuses, which they re-purposed as a sarcastic insult. ####, I think, was actually intended to be racist or xenophobic or both - it wasn't about getting stabbed in the back and not noticing or caring, "you're letting these foreigners and brown people walk all over you" is the subtext there. You've seen the same thing with "fake news".
It's just interesting because I don't remember this being a thing until this cycle, used to be each side had their buzzphrases and talking points and tried to drown the other guys out with them. It's one of those things where I'm going "why didn't anyone think of this sooner?" It's incredibly effective as a PR strategy, though it basically just robs these terms of any clear meaning to the point where everyone's just speaking nonsense.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
